Okay, already. I know that I'm doing this the cheap way, by putting up another book chapter excerpt, but hey, everyone, I"m under the gun to write this article for an academic journal - the Journal for Business & Industrial Marketing before I leave for the Mumbai Conference on Loyalty at the end of January. I really need to finish it a lot sooner than that though so I can devote 100% of my writing time to the completion of the same book I'm cheating with. I'm not cheating ON you all though. Just cheating on writing new stuff. Really.
In any case, here's the starter Wordle for Chapter 9. If you look at the Wordle, you can pretty easily guess what the chapter is all about. If you can't, let me drop you a bigger hint. The chapter title is: "Wikis are a Weird Name for Collaboration, N'est ce pas?" This is a really interesting area when it comes to CRM 2.0 and one that isn't discussed as much more than a collaboration tool that has some useful features. The reality is that wikis are an integral part of both the CRM 2.0 toolset and affect culture in ways that not only encourage collaboration but allow for acceptance of new tools which pave the way for other social CRM/CRM 2.0 systems and tools to be adopted to the enterprise. Wikis, despite their name, tend to be more palatable than most because the benefits are immediately apparent.
So read on, Macduff and let me know what I might do to change it, pat me on the back for it and make me feel good or yell at me for this flawed EXCERPT (it is only part of the 21 pages of the chapter) and make me cry.
Remember, these are UNEDITED excerpts, so the editors who make me into a seemingly good writer haven't worked tis over yet.
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Wiki Adoption: As Hard as the Wiki Looks Easy
I'm going to spend some time going through a program for wiki adoption, not because I think that it is something that you have to follow step by step to make sure that your collaboration effort is adopted but because it reflects the somewhat different adoption standards that CRM 2.0 has in comparison to traditional CRM. While some of it, of course, overlaps, there are a few differences well worth noting because they will impact CRM 2.0 adoption that we'll be discussing more in the strategy chapter (Chapter 21) later. The reason I'm using wikis to highlight the differences is that wikis have the most well articulated adoption strategies of all the social media and in fact, have a comprehensive site devoted to a deep understanding of both the practices and cultural issues for wiki adoption - Wikipatterns (http://www.wikipatterns.com). Of course, it's in the form of a……one guess…..right…wiki.
Organic Growth
This is the number one wiki adoption practice that tends to differ from the more traditional practices that we're all used to in CRM, though when something is available and freely encouraged; it tends to have an audience that's going to want to use it.
There certainly have been precursors to this one. York International, the HVAC provider, implemented Siebel Field Service in 2003. One of the features of this particular application was the ability to create a knowledgebase that could be used to accumulate best practices, for example. When the technicians heard that it existed and that they could add to it, they organically (and virally) added 1200 best practices within a week. These could be accessed by other field service technicians who used them in lieu of the manual.
This is carried forward into wiki adoption. For example, the number most studied wiki, Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein (DrKW), by rolling out tools and training and pre-populating the wiki with valuable content, was able to lure business professionals within the company to the wiki. Initially it was used for three things - 1. Managing meetings which means coordinating times and dates, compiling agendas, updating status, distribution of meeting minutes. 2. Brainstorming - back and forth discussions on new ideas and the development of documentation to support those ideas. This is where order is created out of chaos. Usually it's a few comments and discussions that are random - but it self-organizes. It becomes a concrete document which is made available via the wiki to the members. Another example of this is the aforementioned WikiPatterns. The amount of discussion around wiki adoption and the practices and impediments became substantial enough to become a published book on wiki adoption. Additionally, the ideas generated by the CMR 2.0 wiki community (around 200 strong) are a major part of this book. 3. The other major use at DrKW is the creation of presentations. The content was created on the wiki and then often made into a PowerPoint - making for much more compelling content. More steak, less sizzle.
As of 2007, there were 2500 wiki users at Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein - in a two year adoption cycle - all organic growth.
Wiki Leadership
This is a tried and true principal - one that I advocate in my discussions on "natural leaders" for improving CRM adoption rates. When a team forms to collaborate via a wiki, there is often someone who is more interested than the rest in how the wiki works and he or she takes on the role of informal caretaker. Give that person administrative privileges. That way they can formalize their caretaking. Make sure that the teams working on the wiki trust that person before you do that, though. One alternate possibility is suggested by several wiki administrators. That would be to have any team that is about to start on a wiki nominate a champion who is their "elected" leader. That means that they are on the one hand the support contact and the contact to management. On the other hand, they are the wiki evangelists beyond the team itself. This will support enterprise-wide adoption.
Simplicity, Simplicity, Simplicity
Simplicity is the rule of wiki-thumb. That means you don't need extensive guidelines on use. In fact, here are the (non-corporate) acceptable use terms from my CRM 2.0 Wiki which could mirror a corporate acceptable use policy in the beginning of the wiki's life.
Figure 3: CRM 2.0 Acceptable Use policy. Simple but concrete.
The best way to think about this is that it is content management's good twin. Wikis are focused on the content. Content management is focused on administration. But that doesn't mean it shouldn't integrate into your content management system in time. But it doesn't have to on day one. Additionally, if you want it to integrate with your CRM system, you don't need it to happen on day one (see below). Make the creation of content easy for your teams or your wiki collaborators.
Engage Customers from the Beginning
Wikis are valuable tools for both improving the sales opportunities with your customers but also for collaborating with them directly. If the latter is your goal, and there is a collaboration project that you think would be best served with working direct with your customers (see Chapter 12), then create a group for that project and invite the customers in at the beginning of the effort - not somewhere in between. Their input is can be invaluable in helping you evolve the wiki policies and for increasing wiki participation - and it engenders more loyal customers because they are participating in something of value to them and the company.
A Look at Wikis That Worked Well
There are hundreds of wiki case studies that show its value for CRM and interaction with constituents. Companies like IBM and SAP, salesforce.com and others use them routinely to communicate with customers and, of course, with each other. I've chosen three short ones - two private sector , one public sector - each of which is a lesson unto itself.
Intellipedia
Intellipedia is not only one of the most famous U.S. government wikis - it is one of the most celebrated wikis - period. It was created after 9/11 by the Director of National Intelligence to share intelligence information as much as possible among the entire intelligence community - not just a single agency. Because there would be classified information involved and sixteen agencies it made the effort particularly complicated.
It is not only a place to coordinate and collect intelligence data, but also has become a best practices repository for the intelligence community. Because there are national security concerns, only cleared employees can participate in the wiki.
They have been mindful of its public benefit too. They appointed, early on, Sean Doherty as the Intellipedia Chief Evangelist, not exactly a typical government title. (I wonder how they handle his pay grade?). He has been speaking on Intellipedia at such venues as the 2008 Enterprise 2.0 conference where he was among the most well received at the conference. The idea of having someone who can handle public relations for your CRM 2.0 programs is a good one and the title in any domain not a bad one at all.
One thing that has been notable about Intellipedia is their approach to its users. Organic growth is the route they've chosen and its paid dividends. They've found that the contributors are not just the younger members of the intelligence community. In fact, as Doherty has often noted, the most active participant is a 68 year old man.
Fachagentur Nachwachsende Rohstoffe (FNR)
In Germany, the agency responsible for maintaining awareness of renewable resources, the Fachagentur Nachwachsende Rohstoffe (FNR), is funding a three year program to make sure that the German language version of Wikipedia, the best known wiki/online encyclopedia will be set aside to fund a three-year program aimed at providing accurate entries on specialized renewable resources. The funding will not go to Wikipedia but to the Nova Institut - who will do the entries and see that the information is accurate.
What's important here is the outreach. One of the core lessons of the entire social media environment is that there are activities going on outside your business that impact your business. You have to be diligent in monitoring them as well as creating your own within the corporate walls. Communication through this kind of outreach is of vital importance. It follows the dictum that we've discussed already several times in several ways - the conversation is going on out there. Not participating is a risky proposition.
Polycom
Anyone who's ever worked in a corporate office knows Polycom. If you've ever been on a conference call and were in a room with several people on that call, you probably noticed that you were talking to something resembling a black three cornered hat which probably seemed rather odd at the time. The three cornered hat was a Polycom teleconference device - easily the best quality in their industry at their varying price points. That quality matters a great deal to Polycom and to assure that quality, they have a highly structured, need I say it, quality assurance program. One of the core requirements of that program is being able to track issues related to their equipment and then resolve it. They use the Atlassian JIRA program that I mentioned a bit earlier around CRM integration. They tracked the issues, and suggested solutions, routed it appropriately etc. using the Atlassian JIRA program but they also needed to make sure that this information was integrated into their "help desk" system - which was Siebel.
While this might have seemed easy, it really wasn't. One of the peculiar difficulties of this particular integration was that there were changes in data formats and types in the Siebel systems that needed to be replicated in the JIRA issue tracking system without the need for developers each time those changes occurred. Plus there was always the problems of how to handle the integration so that there was little issues if the data was bad or one or both of the systems were down.
A Polycom service provider, Customware solved the integration puzzles by creating a plug-in to JIRA which allowed a dynamic definition of messages from Siebel to JIRA - thus solving the changes in data types and formats in a real time environment - without those pesky developers having to get involved.
Wikis are among the more mature collaboration tools available for CRM 2.0 deployments and the industrial strength versions like Atlassian and SocialText can be integrated into transactional CRM systems as well. There is little excuse even for you traditionalists to not incorporate them into your CRM 2.0 strategy.
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I don't quite understand the difference between a content or say document management system and a wiki. If a nice document system or content management system allow team update and display the content in a wiki way, can we call it a wiki system? Imagine all the changes are logged as when, who and where.
Gary from http://www.primeobjects.com
Posted by: Gary Zhang | January 29, 2009 at 11:09 AM
Paul - If the content is good, it's good! (And it is good...)
Plus, I do the same thing on my non-CRM blog - post excerpts from books I'm working on. Except no one's agreed to publish a couple of those, so it just SEEMS like blog-specific content (and I guess it will remain so for a little while).
I think with wikis we face the same issue we face with a lot of CRM: it only works if you get buy-in and participation. Unlocking the knowledge contained in your organization depends on those with that knowledge getting involved and actively sharing it. That may mean some active promotion of wikis within companies - sanctioned time away from other tasks specifically for working on wikis, for example. If I'm right about that, it suggests that the higher in the organization the wiki evangelist is, the better the chances of success.
Posted by: Chris Bucholtz | January 15, 2009 at 05:48 PM